One Split Second: A thought-provoking novel about the limits of love and our astonishing capacity to heal

by Caroline Bond

  Most of the posts were sympathetic, but in among the expressions of shock and support, there was a pulsing vein of speculation about the cause of the crash. The party was mentioned – a lot – along with some very unsubtle comments about drink, drugs, fast cars and spoilt kids.

  But, fascinating as the gossip and the gushing were, of greater interest to Jake were the posts by people who’d been there on the night of the accident – the ones who’d actually gone down to the ring road with their phones held in their sweaty hands. His brothers included. These were the posts that Jake studied the closest, looking for clues, alert to any glimpse of himself. He’d missed most of it first time around, but his awkward conversation with Jess’s mum had prompted him to go back and look through it all again.

  There was a lot of material to spool through, plenty of blurry photos and shaky video in which he ‘starred’. After all, his rescue had been the most dramatic, the most filmed, the most touch-andgo operation. The photographs and footage were of very variable quality; some people really did need to discover the zoom on their phones. Irrespective of that, it all fascinated him: the fire crews working on the wreckage; the cutting equipment; the arc lights; the sizeable police presence; the ambulance waiting for him to be freed. In many of the shots his face was visible, and it was odd to be able to look back at himself in the middle of the action. In most of the shots he looked ghostly pale, but oddly calm. You could tell that he wasn’t shouting or carrying on, which made no sense, given what he knew now. How his body had been pinned by the crushed car. How there had been multiple shattered bones in his right leg, and cracks in two of his ribs. And how the act of lifting him free would break more.

  Jake looked at the images closely, trying to will himself back into the scene, but he couldn’t. He had told Jess’s mum the truth. He really couldn’t remember anything. Not even the pain. Oh, sure, he could feel the pain now; whichever position he shuffled his carcass into, and no matter how many ibuprofen he chewed, he couldn’t escape the bite of the screws in his leg, or the cage chafing the skin on his calf red-raw. His leg was well and truly fucked – there was no forgetting that. But of the crash that had caused his injuries, Jake had absolutely zero recall.

  In truth, most of the night was lost to him. It was simply a collection of sensations and pictures that floated randomly to the surface of his memory every now and again. Whether they were from the night of the crash or from every other night out he’d ever had, he couldn’t say. All he could muster was a flicker of images: the same faces as always, the classic Saturday night cocktail of booze and dope, the joy of dancing and not giving a fuck, the darkness pocked with bright lights and loud music. Just another night out.

  The frustration was almost as bad as the pain in his leg, and in his hips, his ribs and his wrist. He really was good for nothing. All he could do was talk, but even that was proving to be a strain. All anyone asked him about – all anyone was interested in – was the crash. His family, his mates, the police, the press, that’s all any of them wanted: the drama, the horror, the gore, the heart-rending awfulness of it. But he was running on empty. The biggest experience of his life…and he couldn’t remember a sodding thing about it.

  So who could blame him for needing a little bit of help filling in some of the blanks.

  He went back to the threads from the night of the crash and began weaving together a better story to tell, when next somebody asked.

  Chapter 25

  FRAN WAS in the hospital canteen when she saw Jake on the local evening news. He was laid up in his front room, his battered leg on display, his mum sitting alongside him, patting his arm as he spoke, a balled-up hanky in her hand. Fran had never been inside the Hammonds’ house. There had been no occasion that had warranted it. She and Anita had nothing in common. Their sole connection was Jake’s friendship with Jess and Harry. A detached, pre-accident part of Fran noted how small and cramped the house looked, much too small to accommodate so many grown boys. From memory, she thought they might actually have five kids, one of them working away. What an excess of offspring!

  Such bitterness – it was a nasty thought, unlike her. But…a swapped seat in the car, Jake riding up front with Harry, and it could all have been so different.

  Fran stood and watched the soundless images, oblivious to the obstruction she was causing. The interview was interspersed with photographs. She should have been immune to them by now, but she wasn’t. There was a night-time shot of the fleet of ambulances, a snapshot of lights and frozen urgency. Another one of the wreck being winched onto the back of a flatbed truck, in the following day’s bright sunshine. Then one of the kids all together at their prom. A head-shot of Tish looking like a supermodel. One of Jess, looking young; the photo they’d supplied to the police was the one she’d used when she applied for her provisional licence.

  An overpowering sense of the worst and the best of their lives being stolen away from them washed over Fran. On the screen, Jake’s lips kept moving, the rendition of a testimony that she couldn’t hear, but which thousands of voyeuristic strangers could. She wished she could hear what he was saying. Not that it would help. He had been unable, or unwilling, to tell her much when they spoke on the ward. The girls were still in no position to tell them. And Harry was maintaining a resolute and total silence.

  The crash was a mystery, a tragedy, a news story.

  People skirted around her, carrying their food to their tables. A chance to take a break and refuel, the TV nothing more than a backdrop. She’d done it herself, often; had half-watched and half-listened to the local news round-up – with its litany of personal calamities and desperate families – while cooking a meal or chatting with Jess. Now Jess had become nothing more than a prop in one of those stories.

  Fran let slip the tray from her hands. It dropped on the floor with the loud clatter. She was glad. She wanted her despair to have witnesses.

  Dom was cobbling together some tea for himself and Martha when the item came on the local news. Thankfully, Martha was upstairs. Harry was out – where, he hadn’t specified.

  Jake! Living proof that even the best car money could buy for a newly qualified driver, with the best NCAP ratings in its class, was only a partial defence against speed and a brick wall. Dom scrabbled for the remote and succeeded in knocking over a bottle of soy sauce. A dark, salty river spread across the work surface. He let it flow. Jake was talking shite, nothing unusual in that; but Jake talking shite on television: that was a new and potentially damaging development.

  ‘It’s just so hard. We were’ – a hesitation – ‘we are best mates. Harry and me, and the girls. We’ve been friends since primary school. We’ve always been tight. And Tish…’ He made a gesture that implied he couldn’t bear to speak about her without breaking down. ‘I still can’t believe what’s happened.’

  Dom knew that Harry had had couple of text exchanges with Jake – content not revealed. Dom had had to reiterate that Harry should, in no circumstances, say anything about the crash. Harry, of course, had blanked him. There had also been an envelope pushed through the letterbox. A ‘Thinking of You’ card, with a rambling message inside from Anita about ‘shared pain and recovery’. Dom had thrown it away. He hadn’t wanted it in the house. And there was Anita now, sitting by Jake’s side, nodding and murmuring, ‘It’s been dreadful. A tragedy for everyone.’

  Jake shifted in his chair, and the camera zoomed in as his face rippled with pain. Dom felt a flare of anger, rather than sympathy, stir in his belly.

  Anita breathily fluttered on, ‘That’s why we’re talking to the council about traffic-calming measures on that section of the ring road. We need some good to come out of this…for the families involved, and for the community. Because this has shaken the whole community. It could’ve been anyone’s child, any family’s tragedy.’ So many clichés.

  The camera stayed on Jake as his mum spoke. He looked, for all the world, like a little boy who had taken a bad tumble. Tears balanced on the rims of h
is eyes. The interviewer’s next question was designed to get Jake’s tears to flow. ‘And what about you, Jake? How are you doing? We gather that before the accident you had a promising football career ahead of you?’

  He’d been a very average defender, often too hungover to be much use until the second half. Dom’s anger sharpened.

  Jake swallowed a couple of times. ‘I can’t think about that now. It’s going to take me a long time just to get walking again. As for my football, well, I doubt that’s an option any more.’ There was a beat of reverential silence, then Jake stoically lifted his chin. ‘But that isn’t what matters. I know I’m one of the lucky ones. Poor Tish and Jess.’ At that point the tears started sliding down his cheeks, unchecked. ‘That’s who I’m thinking about.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ The sound of his own voice startled Dom.

  The segment ended, and the presenter went on to a report about the decline of the local high street. Dom looked out at the garden. It was sunlit. For a moment prettily dressed and besuited ghosts flitted in and out of the dappled shade, laughing, flirting, taking endless selfies. Dom felt cold. Everything was tainted by the crash: every memory, every thing, everyone. Jake had mentioned Harry at the top of the piece, but not at the end. The omission was glaring – had it been deliberate? Even if it hadn’t, it had still been noticeable. And Anita’s mention of traffic-calming measures hinted at a speeding car. That could be damning?

  Dom was fully aware, even if Harry wasn’t, that lines were being drawn and judgement passed on who deserved the most sympathy and who deserved the least; even, perhaps, who deserved no sympathy at all. If there were victims, there had to be a perpetrator. Jake’s interview left very little room for any conclusion other than that the person responsible for the crash was Harry. Fear for his son made Dom feel anxious and out of control. They were uncomfortable, unfamiliar emotions.

  The sound of Martha coming downstairs forced him to plaster on a smile. He reached for a dishcloth and mopped up the soy sauce. His voice sounded normal when he said, ‘Stir-fry all right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘School all right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Did he detect a hesitation? ‘You sure?’

  ‘I said…“yes”.’

  ‘If you get any trouble, you will tell me, won’t you?’

  For a second Martha looked at him, and it was as if Adele had walked back into his life. It was the same sense of being judged and found to be wholly lacking. Then she blinked and his daughter was back. His daughter, not Adele’s.

  ‘Five minutes, then tea.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She walked off and Dom went back to slicing peppers. The story of the crash was getting away from them. It was time to pull it back.

  Chapter 26

  IT WAS two weeks to the day since the crash. It felt longer, but that was because Harry’s normal life had stopped the moment he lost control of the car. He hadn’t gone near college, couldn’t face the thought of it; and, perhaps surprisingly, his dad hadn’t pushed him. So aside from his trip to the police station and his occasional night-time walk around the block, he hadn’t been far. He’d been living like an OAP, shuffling round the house, watching crap TV, spending hours on his PS4, snacking, dozing, never really settling. That was the way he was now, unable to concentrate on the thing in front of him, never mind the rest of his life. That was just dark. There wasn’t going to be a future – not one he wanted to live anyway. Whether he was charged or not, it made little difference. When a little old lady on the news started talking about what it was like having dementia, how she would walk into a room and simply stand there, Harry understood. It was how he felt. Rootless. Lost. Confused.

  But then on Saturday morning his dad walked into his bedroom and sat on his bed.

  ‘I’ve been thinking. Do you feel up to going to the hospital?’

  Harry pushed himself up into a sitting position. Suddenly alert after days of foggy inertia. ‘Yes. I’ve told you over and over again that I want to go in and see them. But you said I couldn’t.’

  Dom nodded. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I think I took what Ross said too literally…about it being best if there was no contact. That was wrong of me. Do you want to go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay then. If you get up and grab a bit of breakfast, I’ll drop Martha round at Emily’s house, then I’ll drive you over.’ Dom stood up.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ Harry meant it, but the thought of setting foot on the ward filled him with dread. ‘Shouldn’t we contact Fran first? Check with her that’s it’s okay – me going?’

  Dom answered as he walked out of the room. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine. Fran has been asking to see you all week. I’ll see you downstairs.’

  The hospital car park was already filling up when they arrived. They had to drive up to the third floor before they found a space. Dom parked and switched off the engine. Harry went to open the door, anxious to get going, but Dom stopped him.

  ‘Just a minute, Harry.’ Harry sat back in his seat. ‘Are you okay?’ Dom asked.

  He was taken aback by the question, surprised at his dad asking it, but it felt too complicated to spit out an answer in the car in a few minutes. In that moment all he wanted to do was get inside the hospital and see Jess and Tish.

  ‘I’m all right.’ When he saw the disappointment in his dad’s face, he relented a tiny bit. ‘I’m coping, Dad. Honest. I don’t want to talk about it now, if that’s all right. Can we go?’

  ‘Okay.’ His dad had to take what he was being offered.

  But as Harry started walking away towards the exit, Dom called him back to the car. Harry retraced his steps. Dom popped open the boot and there, lying in the trunk, were two very fancy-looking bunches of flowers. Harry had lived with his dad long enough to know that not all flowers were the same. He knew that how they were tied, and how big and exotic the bouquets were, mattered more – when you were trying to impress – than how pretty they looked. Dom reached into his jacket pocket and took out two small rectangles of card and his pen. He held the cards out to Harry. Written on them, in curly gold writing, was ‘In Our Thoughts’.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s just a gesture – for Sal and Fran, as much as for the girls.’

  ‘But what the hell am I supposed to write?’

  ‘Something simple. Heartfelt. Something that lets them know you’re thinking of them.’

  Harry took the pen and stared at the five centimetres of pure-white card that needed filling. It felt impossible. His dad was waiting. He grasped the fat, slippery pen and wrote on both of the cards: ‘There are no words. Harry x.’ At least that was true. His dad glanced at the messages, nodded his approval and tucked a card into the top of each bouquet. Then he stood back, forcing Harry to pick them up.

  As self-conscious as he felt, carrying the flowers over to the hospital entrance, far more pressing and unnerving was the thought that he would finally get to see Jess and Tish. Harry knew they were both still seriously, critically ill. Because of him.

  Memories of the crash were with him all the time. Jess strapped in the front seat of the car, her face perfect apart from its utter, abnormal stillness. His despair at her stubborn, heartbreaking silence, despite him shouting her name, over and over again. The reality of her being there, right in front of him, but at the same time totally unreachable. And Tish, her face unrecognisable as they lifted her into the ambulance. Blood everywhere. The loop of awfulness never stopped playing inside his head. The enormity of what he was about to walk into made him feel ill, but he wanted to be there, alongside them, once again – where he should be – even if it meant facing Fran and Marcus and Sal. He owed them that.

  In the lobby they went over to the information boards to check which floor the ICU was on. As they were standing there, looking up, the woman sitting at the reception desk gestured at them to come over. She smiled. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Yes please. We’re just checking where the ICU is,’
Dom replied.

  ‘Floor B,’ she confirmed. They were about to walk away when she said, ‘I’m very sorry, but you do know that flowers aren’t allowed on any of the wards, don’t you?’ Harry felt such an idiot. She stood up and leant across the counter. ‘Such a pity – they are really beautiful. Very unusual.’

  As she admired the bouquets and Harry stood there like a chump, not knowing what to do with them, he heard the sound of a camera shutter. He turned round and was shaken to see his dad taking a picture. More than one, in fact. Harry didn’t know why on earth his dad was taking photos. Dom slid his phone into his pocket, with no explanation offered, and approached the desk.

  ‘Oh, that’s my mistake.’ He smiled, going into full charm-offensive mode. ‘I don’t suppose we could leave them with you then, could we? For the front desk. Somebody might as well get the benefit of them.’

  The woman went into a weird type of flutter. ‘Oh, thank you. That’s very kind. They really are beautiful.’ Harry handed the flowers over, but the woman wasn’t finished. Her smile became tentative. ‘I’m sorry you’re going think I’m being dreadfully officious, but I’m afraid that you can’t go onto the ICU until after two p.m.’ The clock on the wall showed 10.14 a.m. ‘And even then, visiting is strictly limited to close family.’

  Harry closed his eyes. What a nightmare. He waited for Dom to explain, to say that they had permission from Fran, to sort it out, but instead what he heard his dad say was, ‘Really? Again, how remiss of me not to check.’